‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4, Episode 1 Recap: Over Alex’s Dead Body

(Photos: Netflix)

Warning: This recap for the “Work That Body For Me” episode of Orange Is the New Black contains spoilers.

Ha, gotcha! If you read that headline and thought Alex Vause was the dead body to which we refer, wrong. Alex is alive and, well, not exactly well. But she got by with a little help from her new friends Lolly and Frieda, as the dead body is that of Aydin, the guy assigned by Alex’s old boss Kubra to get hired as a Litchfield guard so he could get access to and murder Alex.

Related: ‘Orange Is New Black’ Revew: New Season, New Problems

Lolly saves Alex from Aydin by stomping him — literally — in the chest and neck until he is dead. Almost. Alex has to finish him off later when she discovers he’s still breathing, and when Frieda, our new favorite member of the Litchfield golden girls, finds his body in the greenhouse, she happily gives her fellow inmates a quick lesson on evidence management. If she had committed the misdeed, she tells them, “I’d know better than to waste my time digging one six-foot hole, when I could dig six one-foot holes. That’s just murder math.”

With little parcels of chopped-up Aydin — six, to be exact, courtesy of hedge shears and a hand saw — buried in the soil of Red’s veggie garden, we can’t wait ‘til she sees the killer tomatoes she’s gonna grow this summer. Here’s what else goes down in the opener of a season promising both lots of drama, courtesy of the overcrowded population and a nasty new guard named Piscatelli, and lots of comedy, courtesy of Crazy Eyes’s bad romance, Piper’s pursuit of establishing herself as the head of Litchfield’s “thug life,” and sassy, delightful new celebrity inmate Judy King.

— Suzanne’s romance with Kukudio (does anyone else get the urge to sing her name to the tune of Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” every time she’s on screen?) was short-lived. At the beginning of the episode, they slip away from the rest of the inmates at the lake, and into the forest, where they feel each others’ arms and earlobes for softness. But it doesn’t take long for Crazy Eyes — Crazy Eyes! — to realize Kukudio is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, living in a fantasy world that’s even more out there than Suzanne’s Time Hump Chronicles, with which, oh by the way, Kukudio is obsessed.

— All Morello wants to do is share the details of her wedding day with her fellow Litchfieldians, but all they want to talk about is their fun at the lake. “I’ve still got the sperms inside me,” she shares of her romantic romp against the prison vending machines, but Boo, Pennsatucky, Angie, Leanne, and the rest of her pals say they feel like they got married to… to the lake. The final indignity comes when guard Coates comes up and swipes her toilet paper veil from her head… because he needs it to help Daya attend to her bloody pants, post-childbirth. Lorna gets her revenge for her friends wet-blanketing her wedding day bragging though, when she goes TMI and tells them about her high school boyfriend, and the “special doin’ it shoe” he used to have sex with her. Or rather, the shoe that had sex with her. “It wasn’t the shoe that he wore on his foot,” she says. “It was a new shoe. It was a loafer. We was in Catholic school.”

— Piper thinks she’s running the prison now with her used panty business, and while none of the current Litchfieldians are taking her seriously, she may get what she’s wishing for with the newly arrived inmates. One of them, who’s sporting three teardrop tattoos — indicating she’s killed multiple people, even though she’s in jail for WIC fraud, she tells Flaca — wants to know who’s the HBIC at Litchfield. Flaca, knowing it’s not true, but hoping to get a little revenge on Piper for wrongly accusing her of stealing, points the dangerous newbie in Piper’s direction.

— What with the inmates’ beach day, the old guards walking out, the new guards coming in, and dealing with the influx of 100 new prisoners, it takes Caputo a while to realize celebrity lifestyle guru Judy King has arrived at Litchfield to serve her sentence for tax evasion. She makes herself at home right away though, getting pizza and having a deep chat about sex and love with Luscheck in the mailroom. “Well, look at you!” Luscheck says when he realizes King has a boyfriend and a husband. “Just don’t look too close, darlin’,” she tells him. Later, when King is about to be placed as roommates with Poussey — a King superfan who geeks out so hard at the sight of her idol that she can’t even speak — Caputo sweeps in and gives her a private place to sleep: Healey’s office. Which is a surprise to Healey the next morning when he unlocks his door and is greeted by Miss Judy.

— New guard Desi Piscatelli is bad news. He comes from the maximum security prison, and he already seems to have a grudge against Red, who doesn’t back down when he gets in her face. But she does have to obey his orders when he awakens her at 3:30 a.m. to go start breakfast. More inmates means breakfast has been moved up to 4:30 a.m., he tells her. Who would eat breakfast at 4:30, Red wonders. Answer: Crazy Eyes, who’s bright-eyed and happily noshing her toast and fruit cup — the only prisoner in the room — when the cafeteria opens.

Questions: We Got a Few

— Where’s Sophia? We don’t officially know, but we assume she’s still in the SHU, since no one mentions her, we don’t see her, and it’s unlikely anyone would have been dealing with her during this chaotic Litchfield day.

— Fart-infused food: does that work? When a frustrated Caputo calls Luschek a “moron” while the prison electrician is trying to do something to help the new warden, Luschek opens a container of homemade cookies, toots into the tub, closes it back up, and places it into Caputo’s inbox. Would that leave the cookies with an offensive odor, or would Caputo be none the wiser when he opens the container for a snack? Asking for a friend.

— Is Coates even more dangerous than we thought? Does he really not understand why Pennsatucky is upset with him, as he indicates when he’s telling Bayley about his dating problems?

— What is in Kukudio’s file?! Whatever she did, it shocked Caputo and put a smile on his face, so we’re guessing it might involve sex. “Who likes to be predictable, right?” she says when he reads what’s in her folder. Whatever it was, it was enough to get him to let her off with going to bed with no supper as her punishment for “extra” running away from the lake.

— How worried should the women be about their time in the lake? Chang thinks the water is what caused Miss Rosa’s cancer, and Angie, Leanne, and Flores are experiencing all kinds of itchiness when they got back to the prison.

She Said, He Said

“I got Inmatepalooza here.” — Caputo, asking for extra guards when he gets 100 new inmates at Litchfield right after several members of his CO staff walk out.

“I’m gangsta, like with an ‘a.’” — Piper, explaining to Gina that she’s now the prison badass.

“No, no, no. I’m going in, getting a long, hot shower. See you later, Thug Life.” — Chang, to Piper, after Piper tells her she should warn the other inmates about her suspicions that the lake they’re swimming in is dangerously contaminated.

“Not a very good one, obviously.” — Lolly’s review of Aydin’s professional skills, when Alex tells her he is, er, was, a hit man.

“Shirt up. Bra down. Floobies out. Face slack. Dead girl porn. Cosby dream shot.” — Lolly’s instructions to Alex, after Kubra’s texted demand (to whom he thinks is Aydin) that he get a photo of dead Alex’s breasts.

“Heavy on the details. Less is more.” — Boo, telling Morello she’s oversharing during her sex-with-a-shoe yarn.

“It looks like an angry 8.” — Red, when Piper asks if her (infected) infinity symbol tattoo looks tough.

“And they say the art of gift-giving is dead.” — Judy King to Luschek, after witnessing him prepare his little cookie giftie for Caputo.

“Why do we have to sit in a box to pay for [our crimes]? I didn’t hurt anyone.” — Kukudio, trying to convince Suzanne to run away from the prison permanently with her.

“Dinner is at 4:45. And I did hurt someone.” — Suzanne, explaining to Kukudio why she was returning to the prison.

“Whoa. The beds grew.” — Suzanne, noticing bunk beds have been installed in the dorms.

“We’ve all eaten lead. That’s probably why half of us are in here.” — Taystee to Suzanne, after Suzanne tells her she ate lead (she licked a cabin in the forest).

“She wanted the fairy tale. I just wanted dinner.” — Crazy Eyes, to Caputo, begging him to let her back inside the prison after she runs away from Kukudio.

“Exes. What are you gonna do?” — Suzanne, to Taystee, about Kukudio.

Behind Bars

— That song that’s stuck in your head and you kinda like it: “Motherfu*ker Got Fu*ked Up,” by Folk Uke. The completely infectious tune that ended the season premiere was written and performed by Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie, a.k.a. the daughters of legendary musicians Willie Nelson and Arlo Guthrie. Lyrics: “Motherfu*ker got fu*ked up ‘cause he got in the way/ Not a lot of things to say/ Motherfu*ker got fu*ked up ‘cause he got in the way.” Make that completely infectious and completely spot on for Alex’s storyline.

— That song that’s stuck in your head and you kinda don’t like it: Papa Roach’s 2000 hit “Last Resort.” Annoying the first time around, yes, but with lyrics that were particularly perfect for the Alex, Lolly, and Frieda montage near the end: “Cut my life into pieces/ This is my last resort.”

— The Season 4 premiere was directed by Andrew McCarthy, the eighth OITNB ep the Pretty in Pink star has helmed.

— Yes, Lolly is right about the amount of parking at the NSA: 112 acres, equaling more than 18,000 parking spaces.

— And yes, Bayley’s dad is not the only one into dog dyeing. For the record, doggie expert Cesar Millan thinks it’s a bad idea, both for dogs’ physical and psychological well-being.

Orange Is the New Black Season 4 is streaming on Netflix.